


Time is Nothing

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Genre: Catkind, F/M, The Sisters of the Infinite Schism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven Moffat and Alex Kingston have both stated that bits of the Eleven/River relationship is based on the novel <i>The Time Traveler's Wife</i> (as well as some of an earlier Moffat episode, but that's beside the point here). This is just a little spin on that it came to me in the car.</p><p>Title from <i>The Time Traveler's Wife</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Time is Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amie33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amie33/gifts), [areyoumarriedriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyoumarriedriver/gifts), [savvyliterate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvyliterate/gifts), [BrinneyFriday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/gifts), [Radiolaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/gifts), [Kehwie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kehwie/gifts), [SnubNosedSilhouette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnubNosedSilhouette/gifts).



_‘Are you married (River)?”_

~Young Clare, _The Time Traveller’s Wife_

~The Doctor, _The Big Bang_

 

“Doctor Song, are you all right? Shall I call the Bishop?” The young man in cleric’s guard fatigues looked apprehensive; this prisoner _never_ cried. She gave him a sad smile as she looked up from the old-style paperback book and wiped a tear from her cheek.

“I’m all right, thank you,” she said softly, and if he heard the catch in her voice, he never said so. “And please, don’t call the Bishop. He’d… well, he wouldn’t understand. Or sympathise.” Her voice and expression hardened. “He despises me.”

“Well,” said the young man reasonably, “He very much admired that man you k-- oh, God forgive me, I’m sorry!” Now he looked horrified at what he had almost said, and River took pity on him. He was _very_ young, and he would likely beat himself up in penance anyway.

“I’ll just go back to my book, shall I?” Her voice was very quiet. “After all, in the morning I’m off to what is meant to be my last mission before I finally earn my pardon.” The young cleric nodded and made as if to say something else, but shook his head and went away.

He didn’t know why his throat hurt, but he felt it had something to do with the look on Doctor Song’s face.

Several days later, local time, the young guard bowed his head as he heard of the Bishop’s death on Alfava Metraxis. _At least Doctor Song survived,_ he thought, _and earned her pardon._ He had liked her in spite of her crimes; she had been warm and kind and she was pretty, so he was glad for her. She hadn’t wanted to come back to Stormcage even to pack up her things though; he supposed she was afraid they’d make her stay.

But there was a note asking him - _him!_ as though he were a favourite among her jailers - to pack her things and send them to her care of Luna University. So here he was among all her archaeological antiquities, and he bent to pick up an old-fashioned book from the bottom shelf. Belatedly, he recognised it as the book she had been weeping over her last night here, and as he lifted it, a note fluttered out.

 _Cleric Lucas,_ it read, and he wondered how she knew his name.

_You will not understand this now, and you may never do. But you were kind to me, and for that I am grateful. Keep this book, read it, and remember that not all is as it seems._

_Doctor River Song_

Lucas looked at the flimsy little book - made of _paper_ of all things - and very carefully opened it, fearing that it would break apart in his hands. He looked at an early page and noted that it had been printed on Old Earth, back in the early 21st century. _Well_ , he thought, _Doctor Song is an archaeologist after all._ Tucking the little book away, he packed up her things and sent them as requested.

After the debacle at Demon’s Run, a nurse at a junior outpost of the Sisters of the Infinite Schism looked with curiosity at the small book she had taken from the dead cleric’s pocket. “Can you tell me, Mother, what this means?” she asked the leader of her kind, and the Mother Superior took it from her. Perhaps she would send it to the family of the young cleric who had died of a poison they did not know. The Mother traced the alien lettering on the front of the book with one delicate claw.

 _The Time Traveler’s Wife,_ it read in one of the human tongues, and then below it had some human feet and empty human shoes, and a name almost Catkind in its rounded vowels and hissing sound-shapes. The Mother Superior resolved to take it to the main hospital. She had heard that sometimes a Time Lord stopped in there.

If anyone would know what a book with this title was about, it was the Doctor.


End file.
